Phil E. reminded me that it's been about a year since I bought my $150 solar Seiko watch. Since last year I've learned that ordinary Solar Seikos from the low-end "Essentials" collection actually typically qualify as HAQ watches—high-accuracy quartz—achieving accuracy as good as three seconds per month.
Mine has been better than that. It's currently five seconds slow since the last time change in March, which works out to accuracy of a little worse than 20 seconds per year. That's under two seconds per month, well within HAQ territory. Quartz watch accuracy is usually claimed to be 20 seconds per month, mechanical watch accuracy 15 to 20 seconds per day. Very impressive for an ordinary moderately-priced quartz watch, if accuracy is what floats your boat. (There are many reasons to like watches, accuracy being a relatively minor one. A watch that's good to within a few minutes a day is all you really need if you don't mind setting it every day.)
I have an even more accurate watch, though. By far my most expensive watch, my Casio Oceanus T200, which I had to buy from Japan (Oceanus products are domestic-market only), syncs with either the radio signal from WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado, or with the iPhone. Since I don't receive the WWV signal thanks to the high bluff across the lake from me, I use the iPhone sync. (There's an app.) The watch resets itself four times a day if the iPhone is within range, and you can connect manually whenever you want to. So that watch is accurate to within a fraction of a second all the time. That beats any quartz watch. The Oceanus is also solar-powered. Its hands stop in the dark to save energy, although it continues to keep track of the time. The hands reset to the exact time as soon as you shine some light on it for a few seconds.
The Oceanus is a very lovely thing. Casio, one of the richest watchmakers in the world, pulled out all the stops in making its flagship range.
I've stopped collecting watches. I have seven, and typically wear only three, my solar Seiko, my Oceanus, and my everyday watch, my favorite, a 140th Anniversary Seiko of the SUR3xx series (the 140th Anniversary is pictured above. It's no longer available, which is why there's no link). That one is six seconds off since the time change. I occasionally wear one of the other ones, but not very often.
Three watches is enough for me and seven is overkill, and I doubt I'll be buying more. I'm pretty sure the attraction for me is boyhood nostalgia. I worked at the Bay Point Pharmacy in Bayside, Wisconsin, starting when I was 14 or so, and we had a number of watches in the glass case that served as the front counter, where the cash register was, including some space-age Bulova Accutrons. I admired the Accutrons, which worked by counting the vibrations of a tiny tuning fork. I got caught up as a teenager in the hoopla surrounding the introduction of the first quartz watch, and got interested in the technology behind it, and coveted one badly, in the way kids do, although the first one was fantastically expensive. I bought my first quartz watch on a school trip to Switzerland in 1972. The lore and lure of watches for me pretty much begins and ends with quartz. Given that, I probably should be wearing this Seiko, but I already have a silver version of that one and I don't want any more watches. I'm good.
But it's nice to be back wearing a watch again every day. I do find it handy. And it's a pleasure.
Mike
Book o' the Week
All About Saul Leiter. The Amazon writeup for this book says "Photography lovers the world over are now embracing Saul Leiter"—and oh boy, is that ever true of me—"who has enjoyed a remarkable revival since fading into relative obscurity in the 1980s." One of my favorite photographers. Beautiful photopoems. Saul's Early Color (which you can still get for around $300) was one of our all-time bestselling book links. (I bought two, one to thumb and one to not touch!)
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
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